


Persist

by niqaeli



Category: The Losers, The Losers (Comics)
Genre: Dead Gay Boyfriend, Gen, M/M, fix-it fic for certain values of 'fix'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-12
Updated: 2011-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-27 06:07:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niqaeli/pseuds/niqaeli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Comic.  Wherein Jensen deals badly with his grief and Cougar mostly does not improve matters any.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Persist

**Author's Note:**

> I suspect I am incredibly predictable. Of *course* this is the first story I finish in this fandom.
> 
> Rated abstract millinery.

Jensen goes to Mexico, after New Jerusalem, and spends a few weeks blind drunk. It's probably the only reason he sleeps; when he finally sobers up the nightmares start, and Jensen has enough nightmare fuel to last a lifetime.

After he stops trying to find oblivion in a bottle, he thinks about getting back in touch with Pooch. Last two standing and there's no one left who knows the hell they walked through and no one left to tell, and Jensen wants to hold tight to the one friend he has left. He doesn't. Jensen has nothing left but Pooch has something to live for, a family to keep safe, and Jensen won't risk that.

So he stays in Mexico and looks for a reason to live.

(The only thing keeping him from eating a gun when he wakes up alone and screaming is knowing that the only revenge left worth having on Max and Aisha and everyone else involved in the New Jerusalem clusterfuck is to keep living.)

He rents a room in Mazatlán and finds a job bartending and speaks only as much English as he has to when dealing with the tourists. He visits Cougar's hometown occasionally and watches his family from afar. He doesn't keep a computer or a cel phone, and he tries to ignore the itching, constant sense someone is watching him.

It's not enough, but maybe eventually it will be.

\--

After a few months in Mazatlán, Jensen wakes up screaming, the way he almost always does when he sleeps long enough to dream. His neighbours have kindly said nothing about it to him, though he's overheard them whisper sadly about that poor, haunted American boy.

Jensen's already moving before his brain even engages, because this time he's not alone: there's someone in his bed, next to him. By the time he gets his hand on the throat on whoever the hell it is that's managed somehow to get in his room -- his _bed_ \-- without tripping his subconscious sentries, they're gone.

Jensen stares down at empty air and wonders if he's actually going insane.

\--

The feeling that he's being watched gets worse after that; Jensen would swear someone's following him, can see them in the corner of his eye. But when he turns, there's no one there.

Jensen's never shared the common military dislike of psychs. He's always thought it's pretty reasonable to make sure that the people you're handing access to the best and most dangerous weapons in the world are at least acquainted with reality and rational thought.

But even if Jensen could find one he could trust, he can't. Dead man walking and he knows too much about far too many things; he won't paint a target on some innocent schmuck's head.

Instead, he gets his hands on some sleeping pills. He doesn't like drugs, really doesn't like sleeping pills, doesn't like how muzzy they makes him feel, but they let him sleep throughout the night.

He might've been hoping that getting something resembling enough sleep would help. It doesn't. The itching on the back of his neck only gets worse.

\--

When he starts hearing the voice, Jensen knows he's not just a trauma case coping badly with grief but has gone genuinely 'round the bend and waved goodbye to sanity.

The first time he hears it, he's at the bar. He feels someone run a hand across his neck; he's expecting some drunk tourist getting handsy assuming it's all right because he's American too, but there's no one when he turns just a soft, gentle whisper in his ear in accented English, "I'm sorry."

It sounds like Cougar, before he was full of bullets and telling Jensen to go. It sounds like Cougar, before the children in the desert died for their sins. It sounds like Cougar, before he was _dead_.

Jensen makes it to the bathroom before he vomits, shaking first from the memories and then from the sensation that someone is rubbing his back. (The way Cougar would rub his back when he was hungover and worshipping the porcelain goddess.)

He keeps hearing the voice, after that: a running commentary on his life punctuated by ghostly touches that flips back and forth between Spanish and English at the drop of a hat. (Ha. _Ha._ ) The bar is a dump and was it really the best Jensen could do, his shirts are dull and why isn't he wearing his Hawaiian shirts, that pretty waitress has been eyeing Jensen for months and why hasn't he gotten laid.

Apparently Jensen's subconscious thought the nightmares weren't enough of a manifestation of his survivor's guilt and grief and decided to provide surreal and unlikely auditory and tactile hallucinations. Even before Afghanistan, Cougar had not been inclined to chatter.

Jensen doesn't respond. Partly because the commentary keeps up no matter where he is and even in the era of cel phones talking to yourself in public makes you look crazy, but mostly because he's pretty sure if he acknowledges the voice of his dead best friend he will probably lose touch with reality completely. He's not exactly sure what will happen then, but killing himself to be with his dead best friend _already_ sounds like a good idea some days.

He's pretty sure Cougar, the real Cougar, the one who's dead and not the one he's hallucinating, wouldn't want that.

If he leans into the touches, sometimes, and finds some comfort from the familiarity, well it's his own damn subconscious anyway.

\--

Jensen hasn't taken the sleeping pills in a while, because if he's already lost his mind he may as well skip feeling fuzzy. It means he sleeps like shit, of course, but the nightmares are almost comfortingly familiar.

He wakes up -- not screaming, for once -- from one of his old nightmares from before Max, before Clay and the Losers even, a mission in Colombia that went completely to hell and he listened to half his team die screaming. It's almost calming to dream of a clusterfuck so normal as that mission was: bad intel, bad terrain, bad weather, bad CO.

He's not alone. Or, well, he is; he must be, and his subconscious has gotten around to manifesting visual hallucinations.

"Bad dreams," Cougar says, softly, looking younger and more carefree than Jensen remembers him ever, ever being. "Tried to wake you."

Jensen debates answering. The hallucinations are apparently getting worse. Maybe he should acknowledge them, try and deal with the guilt. Presumably losing touch with reality doesn't get much worse than full visual, auditory and tactile hallucinations.

"So, you're dead," Jensen says conversationally to the ceiling, testing his English. He hasn't spoken more than a few words of it at a time in months. "You have been for about seven months."

"If you say so," Cougar says, with a shrug. "Time does not mean as much anymore."

"But you're _dead_ ," Jensen says. "That's the critical part of that sentence."

Cougar nods. "I died in fire and agony. Perhaps it was purgatory enough; I have been free to wander where I will. I am not very good at being in the world, anymore, though; I think because I do not have a body. It is easiest to be near you."

Jensen rubs his forehead as he sits up. "So, I get that you're a manifestation of my survivor's guilt but seriously, what the fuck is this even."

Cougar shifts in the shadows and plucks the hat, the _fucking hat_ , from his own head and drops it on Jensen, before fading away. The hat doesn't disappear with him.

"You should find someone," Cougar says, disembodied auditory hallucination once more. "You should be happy."

Jensen carefully puts the hat on the pillow next to him and seriously considers laughing hysterically for the rest of his life before sleep finally reclaims him.

\--

It's been weeks and the hat has not disappeared. Part of Jensen wants to show it to someone else, see if they can see it, feel it. He's not sure what that would mean, if they did, so instead it sits on his bed where he stares at it and occasionally reaches out to feel it, run his fingers over the worn and battered places.

Cougar is still talking to him, his occasional touches have become more firm. Sometimes Jensen sees him flicker in the corner of his eye, more real than ever. He keeps telling Jensen to find someone.

Jensen tries to figure out who the hell could possibly deserve to deal with someone as fucked in the head as he is even aside from the whole hallucinations thing. Anyone who'd deserve _him_ isn't anyone he'd want to be with, he's pretty sure.

It is goddamned hilarious that his subconscious seems to think he needs to move on and has chosen to tell him using his dead friend's face, though.

He does go home with the waitress from the bar. The feeling of being watched fades away for the first time since -- since. After, when Maribel traces her fingers over the tattoo on his shoulder and asks him why his heart is so heavy he doesn't have an answer for her. His team always gave him shit for how much he talked; he always had a quip ready. But there's no words to describe what he's lost.

Maribel offers to introduce him to some of her friends and Jensen agrees. Mostly because he's been looking for a reason to live and he probably won't find one sitting in his room contemplating his sanity and poor grasp of reality.

He goes out and sometimes he goes home with Maribel, but he never spends the night; Cougar always chuckles softly in his ear the whole way home.

\--

The off and on thing with Maribel doesn't last long, just a few weeks before an old boyfriend comes back to town and sweeps her off her feet and away to a chapel and thence back to Los Angeles where he's apparently some bigshot music producer. It hadn't ever been going to be anything serious and they both knew it, so Jensen can't explain why he's so relieved.

Instead of thinking about it, Jensen starts making his plans to get to Antigua and meet up with Pooch in a few months. Cougar tells him about Pooch's family, how they're doing. The girls are growing up too fast, the way children always do. Jolene worries after Pooch, but they're happy. Jensen really hopes things are going as well for the Porteous family as his subconscious would like to think.

He has pretty much resigned himself to the hallucinations. Maybe as far as these things go, it's not as bad as it could be. He hallucinates his dead best friend: it's been a shitty decade and they capped it off by nuking everything, pretty much literally. Other people have turned into serial-killing murderers over less.

The fact that he's been waking up next to a solid, warm Cougar pretty much since Maribel disappeared to LA bothered him more until he said fuck it and decided to roll with being crazy. The fact that he's waking up shoved up against said Cougar and clinging to him... yeah, Jensen's pretty much well and truly fucked in the head. The illusion of warmth feels better than the real thing had.

He's very careful not to follow that thought anywhere near its logical conclusion. Jensen doesn't need anything _more_ to be mourning, all things considered.

\--

He wears the damned hat to Antigua, because Cougar tells him to and because what the hell, if you're gonna be batshit crazy, go for broke.

He spends a week soaking in the sun before Pooch shows up -- he doesn't get a lot of sun keeping a bartender's schedule. He's actually out on the beach, hat over his face, when Pooch slaps him on the shoulder. "Nice hat, brother," Pooch says, laughing.

Jensen shoves the hat back onto his head and stares at Cougar who has been sprawled next to him intermittently for a long, long moment before taking Pooch's proffered hand and standing up. "I need to be very, very drunk," he says, English heavy and awkward on his tongue.

Pooch gives him a weird look and flicks the brim of the hat. "The hell did you find that thing, anyway? It looks just like his. Even has singe marks in the right places."

Jensen laughs, maybe a little hysterically, and tries to figure out an answer that doesn't make him sound like completely unhinged, as opposed to the merely slightly unhinged he'd thought he was. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," is what he settles on.

Cougar's breath is soft against his ear, a tickle of warm air, as Jensen makes his way to the bar. Pooch trails them silently and doesn't say anything until after Jensen and Pooch are both settled down with their shots and beer.

"You ever see him?" Pooch asks, eventually, nodding towards the hat.

Jensen tips the hat back and doesn't laugh because he's pretty sure he won't stop once he starts. "Yeah," he says, because he's not gonna lie to Pooch.

Pooch downs his shot. "I'd swear I have. Thought I was goin' nuts."

Jensen lays his head down on the table and does start laughing at that. Cougar rubs his neck gently and it's just the fucking capper to an incredibly bizarre fucking year.

"I'm pretty sure I _am_ completely fucking nuts, Pooch," Jensen admits before doing the last of his shots. "Cougar -- yeah. I've, I've seen him."

"Cougar an' Clay," he says, instead of anything more. Jensen doesn't know what would be worse, if Pooch didn't believe him, or if Pooch did.

He doesn't mention Roque, because neither of them is nearly drunk enough to start talking about Roque, who was dead long before Jensen pulled the trigger.

"Cougar an' Clay," Pooch toasts. "Played to win, nothin' to lose."

When Stegler shows up it is amazingly easy to tell him to fuck off, at least, with Cougar warm against his side.

\--

By the end of the week, Pooch makes him promise to stay in touch sometimes instead of just falling off the face of the map. Says his family'll be fine, that it's worth it to hear from Jensen, know he's okay. By the end of the week, Pooch is also looking at him like he's a few french fries and a toy short of a happy meal. These things are probably not unrelated.

Jensen can't tell if Pooch ever noticed Cougar hanging around or not. Jensen's pretty much not sure of anything about Cougar, at this point, other than that be he hallucination or actual fucking ghost, Jensen still has probably fucking lost it and should not be allowed near so much as a sharp pencil.

Jensen stares at the ceiling, his last night in Antigua after Pooch has gone home back to his girls. "So," Jensen says. "You're dead and a ghost and possibly haunting me specifically."

"It is easy to be around you," Cougar says, quiet and still where he is sitting next to Jensen, which really explains fuck-all.

"Right. Why the hell aren't you, you know. Moving on, having a happy after-life, all that kinda shit?"

"I --" Cougar pauses. "I have been free."

Jensen blinks. "That -- what. What the hell? That is not an answer. That doesn't even make sense."

"And I am apparently not good at letting go of the things that are important to me," Cougar says and reaches over to lay a hand on Jensen's heart, which thumps painfully.

"So we are rapidly heading towards the land of things I choose not to think about," Jensen says. "I'm really not comfortable with, with being in love with my dead best friend's ghost. Who is probably actually a hallucination or delusion or whatever, and I don't have an explanation for the hat but I could just be so delusional that I found a hat and told myself you gave it to me."

"I'm sorry," Cougar says.

Jensen laughs a little and if he doesn't sound sane, Pooch isn't here to frown at him about it. "For what?"

"For holding too tight," Cougar says. "I -- I am not sure if I can let go of you. But you should be happy and you aren't."

Jensen feels the bottom of his stomach drop out at the _idea_ of losing whatever the hell this is, whatever scraps he has of Cougar. "You _bastard_ ," he says, low and angry, as he sits up. "You -- you. I'm not happy because -- Jesus fucking Christ, see the entire past decade. And then my goddamned best friend died _setting off a nuke_. And you want to leave me again so I don't even have this, and _that_ will make me happy? Fuck you, Cougar," he says, voice breaking.

Cougar looks down, doesn't say anything, and that's the Cougar Jensen remembers but it doesn't make him feel any better.

"I didn't want to die," Cougar says, softly, after awhile. "I thought I did. I thought it would be peace, I was so tired. Then I was dying and I didn't want to anymore. But there wasn't any choice, so I burned with New Jerusalem. And then I was dead and I didn't hurt anymore, my heart didn't hurt, but you weren't there and I meant to be glad of it because it meant you were alive. But you weren't there, so how could I be glad? So I found you and -- I could be near you. It is hard to be in the world, but I could be near you."

Jensen doesn't even remember moving, just finds himself wrapped around Cougar, face buried in Cougar's neck and he'd swear he can feel a pulse which makes no sense but nothing's made sense in years.

"You asshole," Jensen mutters and ignores the fact that his face is wet.

He sleeps well that night, Cougar's arms around him and no dreams to wake from. It's the longest Cougar has ever stayed solid.

\--

Jensen goes back to Mexico. He thinks about going farther south but there are too many memories. And if Clay is painful to think about, Roque is even worse.

Mazatlán is warm; he knows people, knows the city, has a life or the closest thing he's going to get to one. He likes tending bar, he's always liked people. He doesn't have a lot of friends, but he has Cougar, knows what Cougar tastes like, and the logistics of that make his head hurt but it doesn't matter.

In his spare time he puts together a computer, gets his hand back in. He stays the hell off the news because that shit was depressing even before they were the news, but he does drop Pooch a line every few weeks. He gets back pictures and stories of the girls. They're going to be beautiful young women.

Jensen still has nightmares but they're not as bad. Cougar is always there when he wakes up. Jensen's almost ready to believe he always will be.

It's something like enough.


End file.
